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Via an per curiam decision, the highest judicial body cleared the way for Texas to use a redrawn congressional boundary scheme that could add as many as five new conservative-tilting districts. The six-to-three order, released on Thursday, approves a appeal by the state to overturn a federal judge's ruling that had struck down the new map in November.

Court's Reasoning

The federal judge improperly inserted itself into an ongoing primary campaign, causing considerable confusion and disrupting the fine federal-state balance in elections, the supreme court said in detailing its action.

The district court had previously found that Texas had likely grouped voters according to their race – a practice known as illegal race-based districting – when it enacted the new maps. It had ordered the state to use the boundaries established after the most recent national count for the next year's election.

Stinging Opposition

In a forcefully written objection, Justice Elena Kagan took issue with the court's decision. She stated that it disregarded the work of the district court, observing that its opinion was actually authored by a judge nominated by ex-President Donald Trump.

While our court is superior in jurisdiction, we are not superior in making these fact-intensive determinations, Kagan stated in a dissent co-signed by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

She continued, The majority's order ensures that Texas's redistricting plan, with all its boosted favoritism, will dictate next year's elections. And it ensures that many Texas citizens, unjustly, will be sorted in electoral districts because of their race. And that result, as this court has declared consistently, is a breach of the law of the land.

Countrywide Map-Drawing Battle

This decision is part of a countrywide contest over the remapping of electoral maps. Texas is a key piece in campaigns to reshape the U.S. House map to bolster a fragile Republican control. Typically, map-drawing occurs after a new decade's census. Yet the decision by Texas Republicans to proceed with a bold off-cycle redistricting earlier this year sparked a chain reaction among other states.

Republicans in including North Carolina and Missouri have also enacted redistricting plans that could add a number of additional GOP-friendly seats. The opposition, in response, have pushed back with new maps in including California and Virginia, which could offset those potential gains.

Partisan Responses

The Texas top lawyer welcomed the supreme court ruling. In a release, he said the order defended Texas's fundamental right to draw a map that ensures representation favorable to his party. Our state is leading the charge to reclaim the nation, one district and one state at a time, he added.

In contrast, opposition party leaders lamented the decision. It is deeply disheartening that the Court has endorsed this severely racially gerrymandered plan from Texas Republicans, said the leader of a major Democratic campaign committee.

A leading House figure said the court had once again eroded its credibility by rubber-stamping a racially gerrymandered map. Tonight's ruling by far-right justices on the supreme court is further proof that the extremists will do anything to rig the midterm elections. The gerrymandered Texas congressional map is a partisan and racially discriminatory power grab designed to subvert the will of the voters – particularly in Black and Latino communities, he concluded.